We are Premier League! McBurnie winner sends Tigers into promised land

GLORY: Match-winner Oli McBurnie holds the Play-Off Final trophy aloft. Picture credit: Alamy / Every Second Media

By Simon Bristow, Co-Editor

Hull City have won promotion to the Premier League with a stoppage-time winner from Oli McBurnie – who else? – to break Middlesbrough hearts in the Championship Play-Off Final at Wembley this afternoon.

After a tight and cagey encounter in the broiling heat, it took until the 95th minute for the Tigers talisman to settle the contest in typical style, latching onto a Yu Hirakawa cross from the left, that Boro keeper Sol Brynn failed to hold, to sweep the ball into the net with his trusty left foot from inside six yards.

“Boro’s hearts ripped out in front of the nation,” was the instant, accurate and ruthless analysis from Sky Sports commentator Gary Weaver.

It was McBurnie’s 19th strike of an incredible season, both for him and City, but he will never score a more valuable goal – the prize at stake worth more than £200m to the victors of the richest game in football.

It prompted ecstatic scenes and a wall of noise in the Tigers sections of the national stadium.

IT HAD TO BE OLI: McBurnie celebrates his stoppage-time strike. Picture credit: Alamy / Every Second Media

The fans and team then had to endure nervous moments until the final whistle in more than ten minutes of stoppage time, but every clearing header, every tackle, was deafeningly cheered as if it were a goal.

And when the end came players fell to their knees in disbelief, supporters hugged and raised their arms and flags in the air, while City owner and chairman Acun Ilıcalı appeared to be in tears, holding his hands to his face high up in the stands.

The ambitious Ilıcalı had dared fans to dream after buying the club in January 2022 – they did and today his dreams and those of the entire Tiger Nation were realised in the most dramatic style.

The promotion crowns one of the most remarkable seasons in the club’s history.

RAPTURE: City fans celebrate in the Wembley sun. Picture credit: Alamy / Adam Davy

City only avoided relegation to League One last season on goal difference and went into this campaign under a relatively unknown new head coach in Bosnian Sergej Jakirović, who had never managed in England before.

The new boss had been set a target of a top ten finish at the start of the season, but even that seemed ambitious after the previous campaign.

The Tigers were also unable to buy any players after being placed under a two-window transfer embargo.

And to top all that, City did not know who their opponent would be, or when the final would take place, until Wednesday night after being entirely innocent victims of the Spygate scandal caused by Championship rivals Southampton spying on three other clubs.

Jakirović and his players also had to stay resilient and focused after finding a window on the team coach had been smashed by a missile on its way to pick them up from their hotel today.

Such distractions were quickly forgotten as City settled into their regular pattern on the pitch, allowing the opposition to have plenty of the ball but denying them hardly any clear-cut opportunities.

The Jakirović method — with this squad — is to soak up pressure knowing his Tigers can bare their teeth when it matters. It did late on today and McBurnie duly delivered.